At the White House's "South by South Lawn" festival on Monday, a big group of attendees gathered for a "swag surf" on the White House lawn to raise awareness for blood cancer.
Bruh we just swag surfed at the White House 😭 support @MillionSwagSurf
This epic moment was planned by Jason Mowatt, whose organization, Million Swag Surf, is working to get more people registered as bone marrow donors. They plan to organize giant "swag surfs," a dance Mowatt described as "a symbol of unity among millennials of color," all over the country to raise awareness for the cause.
Mowatt told BuzzFeed News he decided to start Million Swag Surf after his friend's niece, Shannon Tavarez, who starred in "The Lion King" on Broadway as Nala, developed leukemia and died at 11-years-old.
"They weren’t able to find a bone marrow donor for her in time and she ended up passing away," he said. "She was of mixed background — half black, half hispanic— so that made it really hard because you have to find someone with a similar ethnic background as you."
"You have a lot of brilliant doctors and scientists working on this problem, but when I saw this, to me, it felt more like a community problem," he said.
Mowatt hopes Million Swag Surf can raise awareness of blood cancer and get more people of color registered as bone marrow donors.
Thousands have watched the video, and it's giving people all the feels.
This is black excellence 🙌🏽😂 https://t.co/9MLkoa83DZ
Jealous that I didn't experience this epic moment. But I'm here for it. ✊🏾 https://t.co/pu3vuBiThY
This is so iconic I could cry 😩 https://t.co/WpxMRcyVcP
Thanks Obama. https://t.co/BL7b6hqMMU
"It was really awesome to make this happen," Mowatt said. "Now a lot of people are aware of this project that we’re doing."
